Holly Jolly Christmas

We had such a fun time visiting friends and family in Utah for Christmas.  I took so many pictures that I think I will need to break it up into two posts.  We drove to Utah so we had a lot of stuff in our car.  It wasn't quite as full as when we moved, but it was close.  Lucas tried to pack himself in too.

When we got to Utah we went straight to temple square to see all the Christmas lights.  Lucas had a lot of fun playing with his cousins.

 The temple looks so pretty with all the Christmas lights.  Too bad it was so freezing cold though!

On Christmas Eve we had a fancy dinner with Ryan's family.  The table looked so pretty so I had to get a picture.

Lucas and all the kids had fun playing together.

We had a nice laid back Christmas day.  We took our time opening presents so there was plenty of time for Lucas to play with the puppies.  He kept asking to hold Sasha, and to put her in bed with him.

 He loved her a little too much and she started hiding from him under the table.  Here we are opening some presents on Christmas morning.

The day after Christmas we visited with my family and had dinner and more present opening.  We had some yummy sparkling cider with these cute little glass shoe things.  They were like coasters but attached to the cup.

Here is dinner stewing away in the Staub.  Such a pretty pot.

We took breaks from cooking to open presents.  Here are Bret and Summer opening presents from John and Becky.

 Lucas decided to open his and play right away.

And he and uncle Bret had a wrapping paper ball fight.

Here's Julie modeling the apron I made her for Christmas.

 And here we are getting ready to eat.  There was way too much food but it was all so yummy!

We had spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce made from fresh tomatoes, and freshly grated parmesan cheese.  Yum.  I'm getting hungry just writing this.

 And we had lemon raspberry cheesecake for dessert.  Here's Summer drizzling the raspberry sauce.

After dinner we all decided to lounge and let our food settle... but we decided to do it on the same chair.  Here's a little bit of Crapo silliness for you.  We took like 6 pictures in an attempt to get a good one but most of them turned out really funny.  Here are my favorites.  The middle one especially!

That's it for the Christmas festivities.  We had a few more days of just hanging out with family and I'll post those pictures later.

Merry Christmas

Early Christmas

We're going to be going to Utah for Christmas this year, so we decided to have a little Christmas of our own before we leave.  We also had Christmas with my parents on Sunday.  I like having multiple Christmases.  I made cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate to enjoy by the tree for our little celebration last night.

Family picture in front of the tree.

Lucas is getting so good at opening presents.

It was fun to watch Lucas open his presents because he was so appreciative and excited about every one of them.  Here he is playing with the presents he got from grandma and grandpa Crapo.

 We got him candy cane jammies.  They are so cute!  I'm going to keep washing them so he can wear them every day this week.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to post while we're gone so in the mean time, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

I can't help it...

I saw this picture today and I can't help it, I have to share it with you all.

Bwahahaha!  Hilarious.

Also, another random and funny thing, Lucas has been very clingy with his stuffed animals lately.  He does more than just hold onto them though, he makes them do stuff that he does.  His likes to put diapers on his puppy and take him to the bathroom.  The other day he gathered up some food for puppy and was carrying it around in a can.  I thought his food choices for puppy were pretty good.

It's fun watching him pretend and seeing how his little mind works.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a fun birthday yesterday, despite the fact that Ryan had to leave halfway through for a business trip.  Ryan had me convinced that he had forgotten my birthday altogether since he was so busy getting ready to leave, but when I woke up in the morning I found these.  He went out to get them while Lucas and I were sleeping.

After I dropped Ryan off at the airport, Lucas and I went to my parent's house for my birthday dinner.  We had delicious Gyoza, Stir Fry Udon, and lots of other yummy foods.  For dessert we had the famous Burnt Almond Cake from Dick's Bakery.  It was so yummy, and I'm eating the left overs right now.

My dad got all 27 candles on the cake.  Holy crap!  When did I get to be 27?

 I blew out all the candles in one breath!  Boo yeah!

 Afterwards I opened presents.  Lucas was so excited to help.

Christmas Decorations

I feel like I've been doing crafts and stuff for a long time now, but I was looking back and realizing that it has really only been for a year or so.  And aside from the blocks I made last year, I haven't made any Christmas decorations. I decided this needed to be remedied.  Get ready for a long post because I went a little crazy with the pictures.

But first I want you to see what happens to my tidy craft room when I try to work while Lucas is awake.

Usually I try to craft during his nap, but sometimes I'm just too excited to wait and then this happens.  Look at his devious little smile.  He likes to get into the games cabinet and pull everything out of the boxes.  He is such a scamp.

This is the first Christmas we have had a fireplace so I decided it was time for me to make stockings.  I used this tutorial and they were actually a breeze to make.  I cut out all the fabric in front of the fireplace to get in to Christmas mood.

Lucas is obsessed with having a fire in the fireplace so they are a common occurrence at this house.  We really need to find a cheaper fire wood supplier!  Here is the stocking all put together.  I LOVE the fabric I found.

As soon as Lucas saw the stocking he said, "Really cute socks, mommy."  He always says everything I make is cute and it makes me happy.  Lucas decided to try the "socks" on.  He was pretty proud of himself for figuring out that he could wear them.

Next I had to make some stocking hangers because we didn't have any of those either.  Everything I found in the stores were pretty expensive, and the tutorials I found online required hardware that I wasn't sure I'd even be able to find, let alone find for cheaper than a stocking hanger already made up is in the first place.  Anyway, I was just looking around the house for ideas and I found some old metal hangers and some cardboard.  After a few hours of experimenting and paper cutting I came up with these.

I gotta be honest, I'm super impressed with myself for coming up with these.  They were basically free because I used all things I had on hand, but they also turned out way cuter than I thought they would, and they stay up on the fireplace without falling down.  I thought for sure after all that work they would be duds.  Most of the time spent on them was just figuring out what to do, but now that I've made them, they would be super easy to do again.  I'm debating doing a tutorial on how to make them, I'm just a little worried you won't be impressed when you see how ghetto it is that they are held together by cardboard and hot glue.

Here they are on the fireplace.

That is the same wreath from last year but I took a few of the pieces that were falling out of place off, and replaced them with paper snowflakes.

I saw this tutorial for making a paper tree on Pinterest and had to try it out.  As with almost all of my Christmas decorations, it turned out way better than I thought it would.  It's adorable.

It looks really cute on the bookshelf with my other Christmas decorations.  I feel silly having the word snow up since it's still 60 degrees outside, but I made them last year so I'm just going to go with it for now.

I added a little greenery to our table.  I'm thinking about making a Christmasy table runner too, but I can't decided what exactly to make it look like so I'm just going to leave it like this for now.

 Lucas loves playing with this little nativity that he got last year.

And last but not least, the Christmas tree.  I love turning off all the lights in the house and just looking at the lights on the tree.

 Lucas is a pretty big fan of the tree too.

And now we're all decorated and ready for Christmas.  I love this time of year!  I really want to go caroling, and have some hot cocoa.  I might go make myself some right now, who cares that it's sunny and warm outside.